


The Man in the Box

by syllogismos



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Prestige (2006)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, The Reichenbach Fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 21:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syllogismos/pseuds/syllogismos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one cares about the man in the box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man in the Box

**Author's Note:**

> A 221B drabble because the idea's been in my head for _ages_.
> 
> Crossover with _The Prestige_.

John calls him a machine, and it doesn’t feel wrong. Sherlock tested the device, just before John arrived, but Sherlock was the man in the box.

He’d been warned, of course. _Of course_ he’d been warned. But none of it mattered in the face of what could have been. None of it does matter. He’s a new man now: he rolls a rubber ball and bounces it, repeatedly. Relearning physics. He gets called a machine when Bach is still trickling up from below, from the eternal wellspring of whatever doesn’t fit in a box.

By the time he’s on a ledge and it isn’t a test anymore, he’s Sherlock Holmes again. His hand is his own, reaching out and touching nothing. His voice is his own, choked. And it almost kills him to say goodbye.

This time it’s good to be the man in the box because this time there’s the man on the pavement and the man in the phone box. He watches someone reaching desperately for the man on the pavement. He doesn’t feel anything, but he shivers.

It takes longer this time. He follows Mrs. Hudson to the graveyard because he remembers her, but the ache in his chest begins when fingertips touch cold stone. No one touches _him_ : no one cares about the man in the box.


End file.
